Often, the creation outlives its creator. , Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
DDuring the Republic Day holidays, when I was visiting my relatives, my five-year-old cousin came up to me and asked if I had heard about the popular verses he was learning in school. twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jack and Jill, Baa baa black sheep.., We sang some of these old verses together and had a fun time, but when the kid asked me if I knew who wrote these verses, I was taken aback.
I am sure these poems will stay with me till the end of my life, but how unfortunate that I was never taught who wrote these wonderful poems. Often, the creation outlives its creator. As I struggled to remember who wrote these poems, I had a puzzling feeling. We use many such things in our daily life that we do not know who invented it. For example, screws, they are found everywhere from electronics to home fittings and rarely do we even wonder where they originated. Another example can be as simple as rubber bands, which help us every day, but a large number of people do not know who invented the brilliant fastener.
There is no harm in not knowing who is the inventor of daily appliances, but school has taught us Pythagoras theorem, Newton’s laws, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and many more which we rarely apply in life. It is ironic that we know the names of mathematicians and scientists whose discoveries are great but are of little use to the common man, while the names of the inventors who give us our everyday objects are unknown.
Schools should also tell us interesting stories on who invented the tools and objects we use daily and how they came to be. Parents should introduce their children to the world of great inventors. We live in a world where creation outlives its creator. If you’re wondering who wrote twinkle Twinkle Little StarIt was written by Jane Taylor, Archytas invented the screw and Stephen Perry invented the rubber band.
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